I maybe should set up a schedule, or some thing.

I’m on tumblr and I run across a sketch by van Gogh.

Lots of lines. Lots and lots of lines. But look at that sun – isn’t there something mechanistic about it? Which led my brain straight to William Blake.

I did the tiniest of google searches, so I have no idea if van Gogh ever saw any of Blake’s work. I’m not finding what I thought I was looking for, but maybe this –

God as master craftsman;

Anyway. Van Gogh and his lines. You can see it, if you look because it is really this blatant, how the lines of energy become the sweeping waves of the paintings.

This is all in explanation as to how I came to this new-to-me interesting blog Biblioklept.

It looks mighty awesome. YAY EVERYBODY A NEW BLOG! Rumor has it that blogs are going to make a comeback.

Which is where I found the photo of William Blake’s death mask that I posted on Facebook.

I need to do more art.

 

Advertisements

Also, because of the news.

I couldn’t wait for a fancy store-bought sticker, so I went to the Art Cave and made this, and stuck it in the rear driver’s-side window. And no, I didn’t think about my choice of paint marker – well, I did. I didn’t think gold would work, and silver was right out. It wasn’t till the sign was done and I was taping it in my car window with the paint still wet and daubing onto the window that I realized that red had extra meanings in this particular instance.

It’s been a month now, and I don’t think about the sign unless I see my car without looking for it, like glancing out the door at work and hey there’s a red car and oh it’s got a sign in the window oh wait. Nobody’s said anything bad. I’ve been complimented on putting it up, and that was it. Till yesterday.

Daughter had her wisdom teeth pulled. I’m sorry, there are no good coming-out-of-anesthesia stories. They took her back, I settled in for a boring hour or so, and whoops daisie 25-30 minutes later there’s the nurse saying “you can come back now,” and she’s sitting up and pink and her eyes aren’t totally crossed. The nurse asked her if she felt anything from the laughing gas, and Daughter said, “Weww, I uetth I on’k hawe awy fwa-e ow wefewe.” (“Well, I guess I don’t have any frame of reference.” My Daughter is articulate even with a mouth full of gauze. I am proud.)

So I took my not-stoned Daughter home and went to the pharmacy to get her painkiller prescriptions filled. Yes, one was for the good stuff. I didn’t know all the laws surrounding things, so they had to get her on the phone to get her permission for me to get it for her. I stood around for a while looking at Omega 3 supplements and for diabetic foot cream (No, I am not diabetic. I merely have permanent callouses that I would like to go away). They rushed it through for me, saying “Oh I hope she feels better soon,” And I’m out the door and on my way to my car, and the person behind the wheel of the white SUV-ish sort of thing says “Hey, about your sign.”

Many many snap judgments fly through my mind. This guy’s skin, crunchy and wrinkled and I swear that’s the end of a black eye and teeth missing and the smell of cigarette smoke and I’m sure he’s 70 and his wife is there on the passenger side automatically curling back towards the window like she’s had to deal with this guy getting into arguments in parking lots for a long long time, but you know, I’m not gonna call this guy my enemy. I’m sure there was more to the discussion, but all I really remember was him saying that the whole problem is that back in the 60’s they did away with the death penalty and now everybody thinks it’s fine to just go kill somebody, and we’re supposed to execute them and let God punish them.

So many ways to snap back. Although I did drop the bit about automatic rifles being designed to kill humans, I stuck to the one line that I felt absolutely sure about. “I’m pretty sure we aren’t supposed to do God’s job for him and decide who should die.”* I think his wife said “amen” to that, and at that point I decided to cop a plea of hey my kid is sick and I have to get home, nice to talk to you I’m sure we agree on many things it’s a beautiful day enjoy.

I want to know so many things about them. She was paying on her bill in the pharmacy, she was nice, and clean, and a little bent over, dark coat, white hair. White hair, not blue, or yellowed, or permed, I think. A soft wave to it, shoulder length. Him, that skin, no showers for a year, the black ring an inch out from his eye, how has he spent his life, how did he get there, talking to people in parking lots about guns. How people diverge, even living in close proximity, staking out identities.

This is why I read fiction.

Daughter – sigh. I think I did all the suffering over teeth for the both of us. I made her take the ibuprofen twice, but she got up today and felt fine and went to school and is fine. Her face didn’t even swell up. Of course it will be days till the all clear can be sounded, but still. Fine.

*No, I did not think it was the time or place to speculate on gods, if they exist, and what is their true nature. I could have started with, “well, assuming there’s a god,” but it was a nice day and I wanted to get home.

 

 

Because of the news.

I can hardly bear looking at the news. This idea is reinforced by the vague nausea I’ve felt since NOVEMBER 8TH,2016, a day that is infamy personified. So I have more time! Run away from the news that you are now compelled to check 15 times a day! Water your plants instead!

They seem to appreciate it.

I have wanted an amaryllis for years, and finally asked Daughter for one, sending her links to pretty red ones online. So she bought one from Walmart that said it was a white one. We thought it was a non-functioning bulb for ten days or so and I was about to toss it (sob). Then I put it downstairs on top of the boiler where it was warm. I literally measured the sprout tip daily – 15 mm, 15mm, etc.. Then this other thing came out and started growing, so I brought it up and put it in the window, where it went insane.  The first stem had two blossoms, the second one has three. Daughter is saying that this is proof of the value of threats. I say it confirms the fallacy of black and white – it said white, I got red, and the red I wanted. Maybe it’s the law of attraction.

I have been feeling peckish and restless for a week or so. I got thinking back to my dorm room, where I would go and do my work and feel je ne sais pas, mais bien. I also bought a used philosophy book (and am not looking in my stacks to see if I already have a copy of it) to see what my brain would do. The poor book! I should have taken pictures. The first few pages were heavily underlined, with notes filling the borders. I set to work with my eraser – Thank You Complete Stranger for Not Using Highlighter Ack – but was concerned that I would be fighting this problem for all 600 pages. I flipped towards the back – no lines. I flipped forward – no lines.

The Person got through six pages of Plato, and gave up. I don’t blame them.

Also, yellow.I didn’t realize that nearly everything I ordered from Jetpens was yellow, till I opened the package. Heh. Winter!

So I post once a month?

But it’s always primo stuff! Which is probably available in my neighborhood. But I digress.

I’m reading Moby Dick  once more. The first time was joy at the wild ride! and it is a wild ride, spouting and diving from one page to the next.

The second time, I think I was trying to get back to that wild thrill, and that didn’t happen. It could also be that I was reading it as a paperback rather than on my old school Nook, which affects how I process information.

And here’s the third time, back on my e-reader, where I stop once a page or more to pick up a word, turn it around in my head, in my hands, watch the threads that connect to the page, to the story, to a world that lies underneath this one.

Chapter 7, “The Chapel.”

Oh! ye whose dead lie buried beneath the green grass; who standing among flowers can say—here, here lies my beloved; ye know not the desolation that broods in bosoms like these. What bitter blanks in those black-bordered marbles which cover no ashes! What despair in those immovable inscriptions! What deadly voids and unbidden infidelities in the lines that seem to gnaw upon all Faith, and refuse resurrections to the beings who have placelessly perished without a grave. As well might those tablets stand in the cave of Elephanta as here.

In what census of living creatures, the dead of mankind are included; why it is that a universal proverb says of them, that they tell no tales, though containing more secrets than the Goodwin Sands; how it is that to his name who yesterday departed for the other world, we prefix so significant and infidel a word, and yet do not thus entitle him, if he but embarks for the remotest Indies of this living earth; why the Life Insurance Companies pay death-forfeitures upon immortals; in what eternal, unstirring paralysis, and deadly, hopeless trance, yet lies antique Adam who died sixty round centuries ago; how it is that we still refuse to be comforted for those who we nevertheless maintain are dwelling in unspeakable bliss; why all the living so strive to hush all the dead; wherefore but the rumor of a knocking in a tomb will terrify a whole city. All these things are not without their meanings.

But Faith, like a jackal, feeds among the tombs, and even from these dead doubts she gathers her most vital hope.

All the “b’s” in that first paragraph! And for all that “Faith” is a jackal, Melville rounds back to the promise of eternal life, saying later that staving him in is meaningless, because of the promise of eternal life.

It’s probably not Melville’s best book; Billy Budd is at least shorter, but holds powerful characters who shine like all avatars should. But, No really! read this book! again, if you were compelled to in school. Or dip in, one page at a time, because words matter.

(you can download this and many other books for free at Gutenberg.org)

 

Family.

So. Of those relationships that I considered a given, many have disappeared in the last five years, and for the better. Still, I’ve felt even more orphaned than normal, with a high base-level feeling of “you freak.”

I graduated from college in 2014 (GO TEAM!), and began rebuilding me, my self image, my own story. As one does. Got the job at the gallery, gave up a job that was going to give me a heart attack, generally did the “no, don’t do that stupid stuff anymore” thing.

Working at the gallery, NICE people omg nice, sanity/balance coming back, yada yada.

We were eating lunch yesterday at work. A person peeled and segmented an orange to share, which we did, and then another person picked up a piece of peel and ate it.

SERIOUSLY I DID NOT KNOW THAT ANYONE ELSE IN THE WORLD DID THAT I AM NOT ALONE!

And then last night some of us went to see “Loving Vincent,” and the person sitting next to me quietly sang along to the closing music, “Starry Starry Night,” and I realized I was home.

So there! ten years of my life that sucked. You lose.

Furrows in the sky, planting snow.

Do you read the New Yorker?

An article in the Jan. 8th edition, titled “Been There; The presidential election of 1968”, pg. 75 –

Wallace won just three per cent of the vote in Massachusetts, but his act played well across much of the country, where he spoke to boisterously enthusiastic audiences. After a rally at Madison Square Garden, supporters marched out chanting “White Supremacy!” People told reporters that they admired him because “he says what he thinks.”

49 years ago. Huh.

Daughter melted down today over a Newsweek article talking about World War III. She didn’t want to hear about the big body of fresh water, or our continuing support of local food production. So I sucked it up and said that I thought it was less likely these days than it had been.

So, I’ve been in the art cave doing things, but nothing actually productive – for quite a while. I set up a journal for down there, to record showing up and doing anything, and how I feel afterwards – which is consistently better than when I went down. I managed to not destroy things just because I was foundering in the slew of despair. I think that’s a positive. And I’ve convinced my amaryllis to grow! That was a big thing. I’ve wanted one for years, but never felt like I deserved one or something. So I told Daughter that that was what I wanted for xmas, and sent her a link to a fancy-pants place – and then she bought one at Walmart. It had sprouted, but the tips were purple-ish, and it Did Not Grow. I was convinced I was evil and that I didn’t deserve an amaryllis.

And then I went online and found an article saying they need bottom heat to get going. I put it on the furnace, and then had to call maintenance to look at the furnace. And like always, the first thing Bob did was take all the stuff off the furnace and hot water heater. Patience, the man has. I told  him at least none of it was flammable this time. So they left and I put it back on, and measured it, and the tip was twice as big as before and a new tip was emerging! So now it’s sitting precariously in the sun in my bedroom, waiting for an intense cat to knock it off the shelf.

Drawing hippos. Pleasantly weird. I do not understand.

Have a good day!

20 January, 2018

There is some talk about a massive demonstration in favor of impeachment.

 

On a totally unrelated note; Is this yarn suitable for this hat? Asking for a friend.

I might be angry.

I also might need to find an eye-roll video to automatically attach to anything I type ever again. Because eye roll.

So. For the third time in three weeks, somebody went on (well, really, “off”) about “back on the savannah, chimps had to . . . ” whatever trash activity that the person in question was trying to minimize. The first behavior on the block was road rage. Yes. People have road rage because back on the savannah you had to destroy (by flame-thrower or thermonuclear device) that other ape WHO DARED MAKE A MOVE ON YOUR MATE YES THAT MAN ACTUALLY USED THAT AS A LIFE-THREATENING EXISTENTIAL EVENT BECAUSE MALE AND THAT IS WHY HE HAS ROAD RAGE IT ALL MAKES SENSE NOW.

The second event was a character – a main character! in a book by one of my favorite authors ever! was all “back on the savannah women 7/10 ratio hips and waist and femur length and so of course she was the woman of his dreams. I wept bitter fucking tears. Even my favorite author! My life is ruined. Back on the savannah, this would be a cause for ritual suicide. Oh, wait! This means I can go track the author down and??? ask him how he mistook his dick for his brain? (yes I edited that) Maybe it’s age-related dementia.

Third event was on facebook right after Matt Lauer getting canned and trump being the fuck out of his mind and this – you guessed it – guy asked why OP was so surprised about Lauer because back on the savannah. And then he topped it off with a dose of Genghis Khan.

I started with quiet dignity; a simple, tasteful “oh fuck yourself.” Then I thought better and deleted it. And then I thought better again. No horses were involved. Obviously I showed restraint.

Just so you know, I don’t think they used shoes back on the savannah. I think if we can adapt to that, we can oh you know NOT. ABUSE. POWER.

Also, I think I had better start drinking.

I think I need to go apologize to an innocent bystander about something. Just tired of excuses. Or just tired. Oh, wait. “Back on the savannah…”

Pumpkin puzzle.

So, chopping up a pumpkin to roast to make pie out of. Many interesting things.

If you rinse the innards, they are less slippery, which is totally a game changer in this houseful of people that DO NOT LIKE SLIMEY THINGS.

And here comes a memory! One specific Halloween, carving pumpkins, and Dad spreading them out to dry, and then roasting them. I think it only happened once, but maybe it was just the first time, that stuck in my head. I think probably ’61, ’62. My dad was suppressed in our household. Mom didn’t like sauerkraut, so Dad never got to have it, except that time he went to the grocery store and bought a can of sauerkraut and a polish sausage and made his own damn dinner like a grown-up.

Family dynamics! Suppressing things till you blow up! No wonder.

Anyway. One last little piece of pumpkin that didn’t fit into the two pans, so I microwaved it. Pumpkin tastes totally different when it sits there in a bowl all by itself without sugar and spice and everything nice, like a pie crust that is 32% saturated fat by volume.

Tomorrow we turkey. (schedules should not totally block a feast of eating all the things.)

Mindfulness.

Yep. The current resolution is to pay attention when my brain is screaming at me.

I almost bought a house, to the point where I’m probably going to lose my earnest money.  It is a beautiful house, early 1900’s, wood floors throughout, kitchen in blues and reds with a wonderful refrigerator and stove and a window over the kitchen sink and all the walls downstairs in soft white and upstairs in pale greens and this odd little hall that ends in a window, perfect for a statement plant. It is so beautiful!

In the process, involving much testing and asking for extensions on financing and reports and experts, I was walking around all distracted and having trouble sleeping and going slightly crazy, and not noticing what was running through my head – namely, how the heck are you going to pay for all the repairs this absolutely beautiful house needs? To say nothing about how to arrange furniture in a house that’s all chopped up with (beautiful, huge, tall) windows and oddly placed (omg I love them so much) tall radiators.

So I made the decision to back out. IMMEDIATELY! all the noise in my head and all the weird feeling in my chest Stopped. Silence. Sleep.

So I should pay attention, eh?

Stolen from Facebook. Amazing, no?